Duke of Sussex & Others v ANL: thread 2

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This is a continuation of the discussion on the previous thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_royal_family/5443044-duke-of-sussex-court-case-key-witness-statement-false?page=1

We are following the court case on the

Long gone - he had a film festival to attend...

Haven’t heard if they won any awards . I do know a Glasgow film won something.

I think they’re hoping to flog their cookie movie, to get it distributed. Netflix aren’t interested.

Entitled knobs. People spend their entire career making films and slog their guts out to get noticed. They just turn up to stuff and think they can sell a pile of tosh with a few words and a wink to the right people.

She does voiceovers you know.

All she’s done at Sundance is confuse the messaging around the film.

Considering they don’t actually ‘get what it’s about’ I think they’d struggle to pitch the thing!

Exactly. Thick as mince the par of them.

Any chance DL will bail? When is she due is court? Any chance it will end earlier than the 9 week schedule?

Is it going to get interesting?

I think the main problem in answering such perfectly understandable and reasonable questions is the lack of comprehensible reporting on the court proceedings, except on ‘top celeb’ days!

I suppose it explains why Sherborne keeps Harry in his pocket. (Although Harry probably thinks it’s the other way round.) Harry draws reporters, publicity and fame.

I think the claimants are beyond the point of no return - if they bail now they face a legal bill of millions

Any word on court today?

Can't see anything on Sky News - maybe @PrayForMyBum has info from a Press Association release?

It's Evan Harris again today, according to PA.

EH is getting a good grilling.

He deserves a good grilling - although he is only Hugh Grant’s lackey. It should be the organ grinder, Hugh Grant who has to testify.

Don’t forget Evan Harris’ email to Hugh Grant saying it was a shame Gary Linneker didn’t have any dead children - but he is a National treasure.

That is code for Evan Harris begging for a tiny bit of praise from Hugh Grant.

@GwendolineFairfax8 Hugh grant has played a blinder. If he is the driving force behind hacked off and recruiter, he has successfully got a patsy in Evan Harris to take the fall.
Grant walks away from the ANL case without a blemish on his reputation.

A report on Doreen Lawrence’s evidence!

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/02/doreen-lawrence-taken-for-a-fool-daily-mail

I am in contact with the press about the story behind the story.

Have just noticed there has been reporting on the Sky page during the day (I've been busy). Will copy it here.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence has started giving her evidence at the High Court.
Antony White, representing Associated Newspapers Limited, is asking her about a Daily Mail article after her son was killed in a racist attack in 1993.
In his opening statement, David Sherborne, representing the high-profile claimants behind this action, told the court that all aspects of the case and the "twists and turns" were "great fodder" for tabloid newspapers.
He said Baroness Lawrence's case relies on five articles published by journalist Stephen Wright for ANL between 1997 and 2007.
"During, before and even after the inquest, I was not in conversation with the Daily Mail," Lawrence tells the court.
"Even though this has been printed, I was not in conversation with them."

Baroness Doreen Lawrence tells the court about the "battles" she fought every day while she was grieving for her son.
"Usually when I do interviews, it's face-to-face with somebody," she says.
"You're trusting that somebody's speaking to you, that's all you can do."
Antony White, representing ANL, says if someone called saying they're a Guardian journalist, you would expect that information to be published in The Guardian - referring to claims a journalist posed as being from a different newspaper when speaking to her.
He also asks how she came to select these five articles when the Mail ran a sustained campaign for at least 15 years after her son's death.
"These ones in '97 wouldn't be something that I would have spoken to them about," she adds.
"That time, I personally was not speaking.
"I don't do interviews over phones."
White asks if Baroness Lawrence selected articles or if they were chosen for her.
"I'm not certain about that," she replies.

Baroness Doreen Lawrence is explaining how articles would appear after her meetings with the police.
She says articles would be written "after I had a meeting with these officers, that's how articles would come out", and tells the court "a lot of these things are leaked by the police".
"We were seeing the police on one day and the next day there would be an article discussing what was in the meeting, not something I would have spoken to a journalist about," she adds.
"Every time we went for a meeting with the police, the very next day we would read something in the paper."

Baroness Doreen Lawrence is now being asked about Hacked Off and her awareness of the group.
Hacked Off is a press reform campaign group supported by actor Hugh Grant after he claimed to be a victim of phone hacking.
Baroness Lawrence tells the court she had "heard of them but knew nothing about them".
"I have no knowledge of Hacked Off apart from what I've heard about them," she adds.
Antony White, representing ANL, finishes his questioning.
For context: A major argument in Associated Newspapers Limited's defence is that the seven claimants in the trial waited too long before bringing a case - but the claimants say they only learned they had a case after the six-year time limit and could not have known before.

David Sherborne, representing Baroness Doreen Lawrence and the other high-profile claimants in this case, asks about the impact the case has had on her.
"I trusted the Mail when we were in conversation and to find myself here now having to give evidence, I find it very painful," she says.
"I've been played... to know all of this was going on at the same time I was trusting them."
Baroness Lawrence says she's "never been able to grieve for my son properly" because of her ordeal with the police.
"I felt I had a newspaper that I trusted to get justice for Stephen," she says, referring to the Mail's campaign after her son's death.
"They were playing me.
"They've used me and my son to give them credibility of supporting a black family, but at the end of the day I don't think they have."

Early on in this case, barrister David Sherborne told the court about the individual claimants' "personal watershed moments" - the point at which they found out what they say is information that led to them bringing this case forward.
These are important as, alongside strongly denying wrongdoing, part of Associated Newspapers' defence is that these claims have been made too late - as the law indicates this sort of case should be brought within six years.
The six-year rule
The claimants should have known, or could have found out, if they had a potential case before October 2016, six years before the legal action was launched in October 2022, ANL argues.
However, Sherborne argues alleged wrongdoing by ANL was deliberately "concealed" - an exception that allows claims to be brought outside the standard six-year period.
From the claimants' skeleton argument - the summary of their legal case, a 180-page document that has been submitted to the court - details of these watershed moments were outlined.
Email from Harry
For Doreen Lawrence, this was prompted initially by an email from Prince Harry suggesting there was information she should know, the court documents say.
She then had a meeting with two lawyers.
"Most importantly, she learned at her Personal Watershed Moment that private investigators had confessed to criminal activities aimed at secretly stealing and exploiting information from victims, including her - this information itself had only emerged in late 2021," the document states.

This makes me feel sick. Looks like Sherbourne recruited PH to groom DL into signing up - even the detail of the meeting in the OTT Corinthia Hotel smacks of this.

PH the ‘useful idiot’ As Ever.